Reprinted from The Outlook of February 24, 1906 


Copyright, 1906, by the Outlook Company 


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THE COMING. OF 
THE ITALIAN 


By JOHN FOSTER CARR 


ISSUED BY THE 


LIBERAL IMMIGRATION LEAGUE 
150 Nassau Street, New York 





THE MAN WHO IS DIGGING OUR SUBWAYS 








4 





| 225.295 
To R38 


a Gedo COMING OF THE ITALIAN 


BY ¥OHN FOSTER CARR 
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARTHUR HEWITT 


“ EVER judge a ship from the 
N shore,” say the Tuscans, and 
the contadino, who is fond of 
proverbs, often quotes this bit of tradi- 
tional wisdom when he finds that his 
wolf was only a gray dog after all. Ham- 
let’s cloud is not a camel; nor is an hon- 
est workman a shiftless beggar buffoon. 
The laborer and not the organ-grinder 
now represents the Italian in America ; 
but the popular idea mistakes the one 
for the other. Thanks to the secluded 
ways of Italians, the actual facts of their 
life among us are almost entirely un- 
known. In common with Mexicans and 
Jews, they are pilloried by insulting nick- 
names. ‘They are charged with pauper- 
ism, crime, and degraded living, and 
they are judged unheard and almost un- 
seen. ‘These short and sturdy laborers, 
who swing along the streets with their 
heavy stride early in the morning and 
late at night, deserve better of the coun- 
try. They are doing the work of men, 
and they are the full equals of any na- 
tional army of peasant adventurers that 
ever landed on our shores. 

To brand an Italian immigrant with 
the word “alien” is to curse him for 
being unlike ourselves. But when we 
know who and what he is, and why he 
comes to the United States, and what 
he becomes after he gets here, we recog- 
nize human kinship, and see what we 
ourselves should be with different birth 
and breeding._/ One serious misconcep- 
tion starts ina name. It is as mislead- 
ing to dub a nation “ Latin” as ‘“ Anglo- 
Saxon.” Italians differ from one an- 
other almost as much as men can differ 
who are still of the same color. Eth- 
nography now makes its classifications 
according to cranial formation. Most 
northern Italians are of the Alpine 
race and have short, broad skulls. All 
southern Italians are of the Mediterra- 
nean race and have long, narrow skulls. 
Between the two lies a broad strip of 
country, in northern and central Italy, 


peopled by those of mixed blood. - His- 
tory has a less theoretical story to tell, 
and explains the differences that sepa- 
rate near neighbors, in the north as in 
the south. Ifa single race ever inhab- 
ited Italy to form an original parent 
stock, it has borne the grafts of so many 
other races that all sign of it is lost. For 
prolonged periods sometimes one part 
of the land, sometimes another, and 
sometimes the whole peninsula and the 
islands, have been held in the power of 
Phcenicians, Greeks, the countless wild 
hordes of the North, the Saracens, the 
Spanish, French, and Germans. They 
all came in great numbers and freely 
married with native women. In the 
northeast there is a Slav intermixture, 
and a trace of the Mongol, In appear- 
ance the Italian may be anything from a 
tow-headed Teuton to a swarthy Arab. 
Varying with the district from which he 
comes, in manner he may be rough and 
boisterous ; suave, fluent, and gesticula- 
tive ; or grave and silent. 

These differences extend to the very 
essentials of life. The provinces of Italy 
are radically unlike, not only in dress, 
cookery, and customs, but in character, 
thought, and speech. A distinct change 
of dialect is often found in a morning’s 
walk, and it would probably be impos- 
sible to travel fifty miles along any road 
in Italy without meeting greater differ- 
ences in language than can be found in 
our English anywhere between Maine 
and California. The schools, the army, 
and the navy are now carrying the Italian 
language to the remotest province, but 
an ignorant Valtellinese, from the moun- 
tains of the north, and an ignorant Nea- 
politan have as yet no means of under- 
standing each other; and, what is more 
remarkable, the speech of the unschooled 
peasant of Genoa is unintelligible to his 
fellow of Piedmont, who lives less than 
one hundred miles away. A Genoese 
ship’s captain can understand his Sicilian 


sailors, when they are talking familiarly 
419 


420 


among themselves, 
about as well as an 
English command- 
er of a “ Peninsular 
and Oriental” liner 
can follow the jab- 
bering of his Las- 
carcrew. Norcan 
ignorant men from 
some of the prov- 
inces understand 
the pure Italian. 
Two classes were 
recently held in the 
Episcopal Church 
of San Salvatore, 
in Broome Street, 
New York, to teach 
Sicilians enough 
Italian to enable 
them to use their 
prayer-book. 

The age-long po- 
litical division of 
Italy into a number 
of petty States pre- 
served all differ- 
ences and inspired 
an intense local patriotism; nor did the 
narrow belfry spirit wholly vanish with 
the political union of 1870. Relics of 
it are still found. Aska Roman peasant 
if he is an Italian, and he is as likely 
as not to say “No,” that he 1s a Roman; 
and so with a Genoese or a Neapolitan. 
In dislike or indifference toward those 
from other parts of the country, the 
Italian abroad usually seeks those of his 
own city or province. In the same way, 
little circles of friends are formed in the 
Italian army and navy. Question a 
group of sailors on shore leave from an 
Italian man-of-war, and you will prob- 
ably find that, with perhaps a single ex- 
ception, they are all of one place. Ask 
them how this happens, and they may 
tell you, as they have told me, laughing: 
“ Friendship is for those from the same 
fatherland.” | 

These profound dissimilarities make 
sweeping generalities about Italians im- 
possible. Yet in one point every prov- 
ince is alike. The poor everywhere are 
all crushed by heavy taxes for mainte- 
nance of the large army and navy which 
make Italy a first-class European power. 


THE ORGAN-GRINDER 


LA Lie CLL OGL. ; 





REPRESENTATIVE ITALIAN 


24 February 


More serious than 
the exactions of 
the tax-gatherer is 
the long-continued 
agricultural depres- 
sion that has re- 
duced a large part 
of the South to 
poverty. Nor is 
this all. The peas- 
ant’s lot is made 
infinitely worse by 
an Irish question 
that is the blight of 
nearly all southern 
Italy, Sicily, and 
Sardinia. There 
are the same huge 
entailedestatesand 
the same lazy, re- 
actionary, and ab- 
sentee landlords. 
Throughout large 
sections great 
tracts of fertile soil 
support only one 
shepherd or one 
farmer per square 
mile. ‘To these idle lands must be added 
the vast stretches of barren mountains, 
and the malaria-infested fifth of the entire 
surface of the peninsula. No new terri- 
tory has been added to the kingdom, while 
the population has been increasing within 
twenty years from twenty-eight and one- 
half to thirty-two and one-half millions— 
an average density for the whole country 
of 301 per square mile. And the excess 
of births over deaths amounts to nearly 
350,000 a year—the population of a 
province. Through whole districts in this 
overcrowded land Italians have to choose 
between emigration and starvation. 

A definite economic cause drives the 
poor Meridionale from. his home, and a 
definite economic cause and not a vague 
migratory instinct brings him to America. 
He comes because the country has the 
most urgent need of unskilled labor. 
This need largely shapes the character 
of our Italian immigration, and offers 
immediate work to most of the newcom- 
ers. Almost eighty per cent. of them are 
males; over eighty per cent. are between 
the ages of fourteen and forty-five ; over 

ighty per cent. are from the southern 


IS NO LONGER OUR 








1906 


provinces, and 
nearly the same 
percentage are un-: 
skilled laborers, 
who includea large 
majority of the 
illiterates. ‘These 
categories overlap, 
so that the bulk of 
our Italian immi- 
gration is com- 
posed of ignorant, 
able-bodied labor- 
ers from the South. 
They come by the 
hundred thousand, 
yet.. their reat 
numbersare quick- 
ly absorbed with- 
out disturbing 
either the public 
peace or the labor 
market. In spite 
of the enormous 
immigration of 

alians in 1903 


States Labor Bulletin shows that the aver- 
age daily wage of the laborer in the North 
Atlantic States—the “‘congested”’ district 
at the very gates of Ellis Island—had 
increased within the year from $1.33 to 
$1.39. And 1904 was not a particularly 
prosperous year. Equally significant, in 
view of the unprecedented Italian immi- 
gration of the first six months of this year, 
is the announcement in the last number 
of the Bulletin of the New York State 
Department of Labor that the improve- 
ment in the conditions of employment 
has been so marked, and “ the propor- 
tion of idle wage-earners has diminished 
so rapidly, that the second quarter of 
1905 surpasses that of 1902, the record 
year.” | 

The demand of the East for labor is 
first heard by the new arrival who needs 
to look for work, and probably a majority 
of Italian draccianti never go more than 
a hundred and fifty miles away from 
New York. Immediate work and high 
wages, and not a love for the tenement, 
create our ‘Little Italies.”” The great 
enterprises in progress in and about the 
city, the subways, tunnels, water-works, 


Hage OM IIV Ga OP. TAL STALTAL: 





THES MAN WIG THE SHOVEL 1S OUR -KEPRE- 


and 1904, the last SENTATIVE ITALIAN TO-DAY 
issue Of the 


42 


railroad construc- 
tion, as well as the 
ordinary building 
operations, call for 
a vast army of 
laborers. For new 
and remodeled 
tenements alone, 
authorized by the 
Building Depart- 
ment between 
April and June, 
1905, the = esti- 
mated cost was 
over $39,000,000. 
This gives one 
measure of the 
demand. A labor 
leader has _ fur- 
nishedanother. At 
a recent confer- 
ence, arguing that 
restriction of im- 
migration would 
_ benefit American 
labor, he said that 
an authority in the 
building trade had 
calculated that with immigration sus- 
pended, common labor in New York 
would be receiving $3 within a year. He 
had not calculated the paralysis that 
such a wage would inflict upon industry. 

Of all that come in response to our 
National invitation to the worker, the 
educated Italian without a manual trade 
is the Italian who most signally fails in 
America. He is seen idling at the cheap 
restaurants everywhere in the Italian 
colonies. But the illiterate laborer takes 
no chances. He usually has definite 
knowledge of precisely where work is 
needed before he leaves home. Fifteen 
thousand immigrants sometimes reach 
Ellis Island in a single day. Yet each 
Italian must earn his living in some way, 
and that at once, for he brings no more 
than eight or ten dollars with him. 

This same inborn conservatism that 
risks nothing makes of southern Italians 
the most mobile supply of labor that this 
country has ever known. Migratory 
laborers, who come here to work during 
eight or nine months of the year, and 
return between October and December, 
are a very large part of the annual immi- 


422 


gration. ‘They form a stream of workers 
that ebbs and flows from Italy to Amer- 
. ica in instant response to demand; and 
yet the significance of the movement has 
gone almost entirely unnoticed. More 
than 98,000 Italians—laborers and others, 
but chiefly laborers—went back to Italy 
in 1903. In 1904, owing to a temporary 
lull in our prosperity and the general 
business uncertainty during a Presiden- 
tial campaign, the demand slackened. 
The common laborer, who ordinarily 
pays a padrone fifty cents as a fee for 
employment, was offering as high as 
five dollars for a job in the summer of 
1904. In the end, more than 134,000 
Italians returned to Italy within the year, 
and we were saved the problem of an 
army of unemployed. 

If the ignorant immigrant is a menace, 
the mobility of Italian unskilled labor 
has conferred another blessing upon us, 
for it is the very element that contains a 
large majority of the dreaded illiterates. 
The whole number of them who enter 
the community thus gives no indication 
of the number who are permanently 
added to our population, and the yearly 
percentage of their arrivals since 1901 
has fallen from 59.1 per cent. to 47 per 
cent., and is likely to fall still lower. 
But there is something to be said on 
behalf of the illiterates who remain 
among us. They are never Anarchists ; 
they are guiltless of the so-called ‘“ black 
hand” letters. The individual dracez- 
ante is, in fact, rarely anything but a 
gentle and often a rather dull drudge, 
who still has wit enough to say that he 
knows he cannot be Cesar, and is very 
well content to be plain Neapolitan 
Nicola. Knowledge is power, but an 
education gives no certificate of charac- 


ter, and still less does ability to read and ~ 


write afford any test whatever either of 
. morals or of brains. A concrete instance 
gives a practical proof. ‘There are more 
than four times as many illiterates in the 
general population of the United States 
as were found, according to the last 
published report, among those arrested 
in Greater New York between January 1 
and March 31, 1905:44,014 persons were 
arrested ; of these, only 1,175, or a little 
over 2.6 per cent., were unable to read 
or write. The percentage of illiteracy 


THE OGLILOOK 


for the entire United States is 10.6 per 
cent., and for that of the native whites 
alone 4.6 per cent. 

The very success of American schools 
goes far in explaining the mystery of our 
exorbitant demand for unskilled labor. 
In proportion as they fulfill their mission 
they are depriving us of the rough la- 
borer. The boy who is forbidden by 
the New York law to leave school until 
he is fourteen years old and has reached 
the fifth grammar grade, later in life 
does not join a gang that digs sewers 
and subways. Such laborers are re- 
cruited from the illiterate, or nearly illit- 
erate—those who have failed in the 
beginning of the struggle in which brains 
count. For our future supply of the 
lower grades of labor we must depend 
more and more upon countries with a 
poorer school system than ours. 

Lies have short legs, the Florentine 
tag has it, but the Italian is still accused 
of being a degenerate, a lazy fellow and 
a pauper, half a criminal, a present dan- 
ger and a serious menace to our civiliza- 
tion. If there is a.substantial basis of 
truth in these charges, it must appear 
very clearly in Greater New York, which 
is now disputing Rome’s place as the 
third largest Italian city in the world. 
Moreover, New York contains nearly 
two-fifths of all the Italians in the United 
States, and in proportion to its size it is 
the least prosperous Italian colony in the 
country, and shelters a considerable part 
of our immigrant failures—those who 
cannot fall into step with the march of 
American life. 

First, as to the paupers. ‘The Italian 
inhabitants of New York City number 
nearly 450,000; the Irish, somewhat over 
300,000. In males—the criminal sex— - 
the Italians outnumber the Irish about 
two to one. Yet by a visit to the great 
almshouse on Blackwell’s Island and an 
examination of the unpublished record 
for 1904, I found that during that year 
1,564 Irish had been admitted, and only 
16 Italians. Mr. James Forbes, the chief 
of the Mendicancy Department of the 
Charity Organization Society, tells me 
that he has never seen or heard of an 
Italian tramp. As for begging, between 
July 1, 1904, and September 30, 1905, 
the Mendicancy Police took into custody 








IN Tae BEBECKER, SUREET COLONY. 





A GENOESE RESTAURANT KEEPER, HIS COOK AND WAITRESS 
The cook, who comes from Parma, only seventy-five miles from Genoa, has had to learn Genoese as a new language 





SIGNOR ANTONIO STELLA 
A prominent physician and philanthropist 


519 Irish and only 92: Italians. Pau- 
perism has a close relation with suicide, 
and of such deaths during the year the 
record counts 89 Irish and 23 Italians. 
The Irish have always supplied much 
more than their share of our paupers; 
but Irish brawn has contributed its full 
part to the prosperity of the country; 
and the comparatively large proportion 
of Irish inmates in all our penal institu- 
tions never justified the charge that the 
Irish are a criminal race, or Irish immi- 
gration undesirable. ‘That was the final 
answer to the Know-Nothing argument ! 

Nor do court records show that Ital- 
ians are the professional criminals they 
are said to be. ‘Take the city magis- 
trates’ reports. for the year ending De- 
cember 31, 1901—the latest. date for 
which all the necessary data are avail- 
able. At that time, using Dr. Laidlaw’s 
estimate of additions by immigration to 
the population of the city to May 1, 
1902, there were about 282,804 Irish 
and 200,549 Italians in Greater New 
York. If the proportion of the sexes 
remained unchanged from the taking of 
the census, there were 117,599 Irish 
males, and 114,673 Italian. This near 


equality of the criminal sex in the two 
4.24, 


SIGNOR ANTONIO‘ FRANCOTLINI 
President of the New York Italian Savings Bank, 
prominent in reform movements and philanthropy 


REPRESENTATIVE TEAL TAY 


nationalities makes possible a rough 
measure of Italian criminality. 

In these columns of crime the most 
striking fact in the Italian’s favor is a 
remarkable showing of sobriety. During 
the year, 7,281 Irish were haled into 
court accused of “ intoxication ” and ‘ in- 
toxication and disorderly conduct,” while 
the Italians arrested on the same charge 
numbered only 513. With the exception 
of the Russian Jews, Italians are by far 
the most sober of all nationalities in 
New York, including the native born. 
Next, noticing only offenses committed 
with particular frequency, the Italians 
again appear at a pronounced advantage 
in: Assaults (misdemeanor), 284 Irish 
and 139 Italians; disorderly conduct, 
3,278 Irish and 1,454 Italians ; larcen¥ 
(misdemeanor), 297 Irish and 174 Ital- 
ians; vagrancy, 1,031 Irish and 80 
Italians. Insanity is here listed with 


. crime, and there are 146 Irish commit- 


ments to 35 Italian. Irish and Italians 
are nearly at an equality in: Burglaries, 
63 Irish and 57 Italians; and larceny 
(felony), 122 Irish and 94 Italians. On 
the other hand, Italians show at the 
worst in: Violation of corporation ordi- 
nance (chiefly peddling without a license), 


AN 





SIGNOR ANTONIO ZUCCA 


President of the New York Italian Cham- 
ber of Commerce, prominent in politics 


SELF-MADE MEN 


196 Irish and 1,169 Italians; and assault 
(felony), 75 Irish and 155 Italians. In 
homicides, quite contrary to the popular 
impression, the Italians are only charged 
with the ratio exactly normal to their 
numbers after taking the average per 
100,000 for the whole city, while the 
Irish are accused of nearly two and one- 
half times their quota: Irish 50, Italians 
14. The report for 1903, the last pub- 
lished, after important changes effected 
by almost two years of immigration, 
shows an unchanged proportional varia- 
tion: Irish 59, Italians 21. 

The one serious crime to which Italians 
are prone more than other men is an 
unpremeditated crime of violence. This 
is mostly charged, and probably with 
entire justice, upon the men of four 
provinces, and Girgenti in Sicily is par- 
ticularly specified. It is generally the 
outcome of quarrels among themselves, 
prompted by jealousy and _ suspected 
treachery. ‘The Sicilians’ code of honor 
is an antiquated and repellent one, but 
even his vendetta is less ruthless than the 
Kentucky mountaineer’s. It stops at 
the grave. Judged in the mass, Italians 
are peaceable, as they are law-abiding. 
The exceptions make up the national 





SIGNOR ROSSATI 
An Italian agricultural expert 


criminal record; and as there is a French 
or English type of criminal, so there is 
a Sicilian type, who has succeeded in 


_impressing our imaginations with some 


fear and terror. 

The Mafia is the expression of Sicilian 
criminality, and here, as in Italy, the 
methods of the Sicilian criminal are the 
same. For some of his crimes he is 
more apt to have an accomplice than 
most other criminals. But there is no 
sufficient reason for believing that a 
Mafia, organized as it often is in Italy, 
a definite society of the lawless, exists 
anywhere in this country. No one who 
knows the different Italian colonies well 
will admit the possibility of its existence. 
The authorities at police headquarters 
scout the idea. As with the Mafia, so 
with the Black Hand. I went to Ser- 
geant Petrosino, who is said to know 
every important Italian criminal in New 
York. He disposed very summarily of 
theabogey: ‘As: far as they can be 
traced, threatening letters are generally 
a hoax; some of them are attempts at 
blackmail by inexperienced criminals, 
who have had the idea suggested to 
them by reading about the Black Hand 


in the sensational papers; but the num- 
425 


426 


ber of threatening letters sent with the 
deliberate intention of using violence as 
a last resort to extort money is ridicu- 
lously small.” 

It is important that two or three other 


truths about the Italian should be known. . 


Like all their immigrant predecessors, 
Italians profess no special cult of soap 
and water; and here, too, there are dif- 
ferences, for some Italians are cleaner 
than others. Still, cleanliness is the 
rule and dirt the exception. The inspect- 
ors of the New York Tenement-House 
Department report that the tenements 
in the Italian quarters are in the best 
condition of all, and that they are infi- 
nitely cleaner than those in the Jewish 
and Irish districts. And the same with 
overcrowding. One of New York’s typi- 
cal “Little Italies” is inhabited by 
1,075 Italian families—so poor that only 
twenty-six of them pay over $19 monthly 
rent—and yet, when a complete canvass 
was made by the Federation of Churches, 
the average allotment of space was found 
to be one room to 1.7 persons. Like 
the Germans and Irish of the fifties, our 
Italians are largely poor, ignorant peas- 
ants when they come to us. But by the 
enforcement of the recent law our 
present immigrants are greatly superior 
physically and morally to those of the 
Know-Nothing days. ‘The difference in 
criminal records is partly the proof of a 
better law. The worst of the newer 
tenements are better than the best of the 
old kind, and every surrounding is more 
sanitary. Better schools, recreation piers, 
public baths, playgrounds, and new 
parks are helping the Italian children of 
the tenements to develop into healthy 
and useful men and women. 

To understand our Italians we need 
to get close enough to them to see that 
they are of the same human fasta—to 
use their word—as the rest of us. ‘They 
need no defense but the truth. In spite 
of the diverse character that all the 
provinces stamp upon their children, 
our southern Italian immigrants. still 
have many qualities in common. ‘Their 
peculiar defects and vices have been ex- 
aggerated until the popular notion of the 
Italian represents the truth in about the 
same way that the London stage Yankee 
hits off the average American. Besides, 





LHE “OOLLO OTE 


as the Italian Poor Richard says, “It’s 
a bad wool that can’t be dyed,” and our 
Italians have their virtues, too, which 
should be better known. Many of them 
are, it is true, ignorant, and clannish, and 
conservative. Their humility and lack 
of self-reliance are often discouraging. 
Many think that a smooth and diplomatic 
falsehood is better than an uncivil truth, 
and, by a paradox, a liar is not neces- 
sarily either a physical or a moral coward. 
No force can make them give evidence 
against one another. Generally they have 
little orderliness, small civic sense, and 
no instinctive faith in the law. Some 


of them are hot-blooded and quick to 


avenge an injury, but the very large 
majority are gentle, kindly, and as mild- 
tempered as oxen. They are docile, 
patient, faithful. | They have great physi- 
cal vigor, and are the hardest and best 
laborers we have ever had, if we are to 
believe the universal testimony of their 
employers. Many are well-mannered and 
quick-witted ; all are severely logical. As 


a class they are emotional, imaginative, “ 


fond of musicandart. They are honest, 
saving, industrious, temperate, and ‘so 
exceptionally moral.that two years ago 
the Secretary of theNItalian Chamber of 
Commerce in San Francisco was able to 
boast that the police of that city had 
never yet found an Italian woman of 
evil character. Even in New York (and 
I have my information from Mr. Forbes, 
of the Charity Organization Society) Ital- 
lan prostitution was entirely unknown 
until by our corrupt police it was colo- 
nized as scientifically as a culture of 
bacteria made by a biologist; and to-day 
it is less proportionately than that of any 
other nationality within the limits of the 
greater city. More than 750,000 Italian 
immigrants have come to us within the 
last four years, and during that entire 
time only a single woman of them has 
been ordered deported charged with 
prostitution. 

So far from being a scum of Italy’s 


paupers and criminals, our Italian immi-— 


grants are the very flower of her peas- 
antry. ‘They bring healthy bodies and 
a prodigious will to work. They have 
an intense love for their fatherland, 
and a fondness for old customs; and 
both are deepened by the hostility they 


ITALIANS EXCAVATING 





FOR THE FOUNDATIONS OF A SKY-SCRAPER 


428 


meet and the gloom of the tenements 
that they are forced to inhabit. The 
sunshine, the simplicity, the happiness 
of the old outdoor ways are gone, and 
often you will hear the words, ‘“‘ Non c’é 
piacere nella vita ’’—there is no pleasure 
in life here. But yet they come, driven 


THE VOCTLOOR 


24 February 


preservation of the Italian spirit and tra- 
dition. : 

But there are limits to the building of 
an Italian city on American soil. New 
York tenement-houses are not adapted 
to life as it is organized in the hill villages 
of Italy, and a change has come over 





A LEMON PEDDLER FROM CAMPO BASSO 


from a land of starvation to a land of 
plenty. Each year about one-third of 
the great host of industrial recruits from 
Italy, breaking up as it lands into little 
groups of twos and threes, and invading 
the tenements almost unnoticed, settles 
in the different colonies of New York. 
This is a mighty, silent influence for the 


every relation of life. ‘The crowded liv- 
ing is strange and depressing; instead 
of work accompanied by song in orange- 
ries and vineyards, there is silent toil 
in the cafions of acity street; instead of 
the splendid and expostulating caradznt- 
ere there is the rough force of the New 
York policeman to represent authority. 


9 


\ ‘— 


bs es 


© 


1906 


There is the diminished importance of 
the church, and, in spite of their set 
ways, there is different eating and drink- 
ing, sleeping and waking. A different 
life breeds different habits, and different 
habits with American surroundings effect 
a radical change in the man. It is diffi- 
cult for the American to realize this. 
He sees that the signs and posters of the 
colony are all in Italian; he hears the 
newsboys cry ‘“ Progresso,” ‘ Araldo,”’ 
“ Bolletino;” he hears peddlers shout 
out in their various dialects the names 
of strange-looking vegetables and fish. 
The whole district seems so Italianized 
and cut off from the general American 
life that it might as well be one of the 
ancient walled towns of the Apennines. 
He thinks that he is transported to 
ltaly, and moralizes over the “ unchang- 
ing colony.” But the greenhorn from 
Fiumefreddo isin another world. Every- 
thing is strange to him; and I have 
repeatedly heard Italians say that for a 
long time after landing they could not 
distinguish between an Italian who had 
_been here four or five years anda native 
American. 

Refractory though the grown-up immi- 
grant may often be to the spirit of our 
Republic, the children almost imme- 
diately become Americans. The boy 
takes no interest in ‘“ Mora,” a guess- 
ing match played with the fingers, or 
“ Boccie,” a kind of bowls—his father’s 
favorite games. Like any other Ameri- 
can boy, he plays marbles, “I spy the 
wolf,” and, when there is no_ police- 
man about, baseball. Little girls skip 
the rope to the calling of ‘“ Pepper, 
salt, mustard, vinegar.” The “ Lunga 
Tela” is forgotten, and our equivalent, 
“London bridge is falling down,” and 
«All around the mulberry-bush,” sound 
through the streets of the colony on 
summer evenings. You are struck with 
the deep significance of such a sight if 
you walk on Mott Street, where cer- 
tainly more than half of the men and 
women who crowd every block can speak 
no English at all, and see, as I have 
seen, a full dozen of small girls, not more 
than five or six years old, marching 
along, hand in hand, singing their kin- 
dergarten song, “My little sister lost 
her shoe.” Through these children the 


’ 


Date COMING OL CEE STALTAN: 


ye 


common school is leavening the whole 
mass, and an old story is being retold. 

Like the Italians, the Irish and the 
Germans had to meet distrust and abuse 
when they came to do the work of the 
rough day-laborer. The terrors and 
excesses of Native Americanism and 
Know-Nothingism came and went, but 
the prejudice remained. Yet the Irish 
and Germans furnished good raw material 
for citizenship, and quickly responded 
to American influences. ‘They dug cel- 
lars and carried bricks and mortar; 
they sewered, graded, and paved the 
streets and built the railroads. Then 
slowly the number of skilled mechanics 
among them increased. Many acquired 
a competence and took a position of 
some dignity in the community, and 
Irish and Germans moved up a little in 
the social scale. They were held in 
greater respect when, in the dark days 
of the Civil War, we saw that they yielded 
to none in self-sacrificing devotion to the 
country. ‘Thousands of Germans fought 
for the Union besides those who served 
under Sigel. Thousands of Irishmen 
died for the cause besides those of the 
SOldoixtyuinth <toDutch and Mick 
began to go out of fashion as nicknames, 
and the seventies had not passed before 
it was often said among the common 
people that mixed marriages between 
Germans or Irish and natives were usu- 
ally happy marriages. 

From the very bottom, Italians are 
climbing up the same rungs of the same 
social and industrial ladder. But it is 
still a secret that they are being grad- 
ually turned into Americans; and, for 
all its evils, the city colony is a wonder- 
ful help in the process. ‘The close con- 
tact of American surroundings eventually 
destroys the foreign life and spirit, and 
of this New York gives proof. Only 
two poor fragments remain of the nu- 
merous important German and _ Irish 
colonies that were flourishing in the city 
twenty-five or thirty years ago; while 
the ancient settled Pennsylvania Dutch, 
thanks to their isolation, are not yet 
fully merged in the great citizen body. 
And so, in the city colony, Italians are 
becoming Americans. Legions of them, 
who never intended to remain here 
when they landed, have cast in their lot 





AS GROUP OF SCHOOL? CHILDREN, ALES ULATTAIN'S 
““ Through these children the common school is leavening the whole mass ”’ 


definitely with us; and those who have 
already become Americanized, but no 
others, are beginning to intermarry with 
our people. / The mass of them are still 
laborers, toiling like ants in adding to 
the wealth of the country; but thousands 
are succeeding in many branches of 
trade and manufacture. The names of 
Italians engaged in business in the 
United States fill a special directory of 
ever five hundred pages. Their real 
estate holdings and bank deposits ag- 
gregate enormous totals. ‘Their second 
generation is already crowding into all 
the professions, and we have Italian 
teachers, dentists, architects, engineers, 
doctors, lawyers, and judges. | 

But more important than-any material 
success is their loyalty to the nation of 
their adoption. Yet with this goes an 
undying love for their native land. 
There are many types of these new citt- 
zens. I have in mind an Italian banker 
who will serve for one. His American- 
ism is enthusiastic and breezily Western. 
He has paid many visits to the land of 
his birth, and delights in its music, art, 
and literature. He finds an almost 
sacred inspiration in the glories of its 
history. Beginning in extreme poverty, 
by his own unaided efforts he has 
secured education and wealth; by his 


services to the city and State in which 
430 


he lives he has won public esteem. Per- 
haps no other Italian has achieved so 
brilliant a success. But as a citizen he 
is no mere typical or hopeful an example 
of the Italian who becomes an American 
than Giovanni Aloi, a street-sweeper of 
my acquaintance. 

This honest spazzino of the white uni- 
form sent a son to Cuba in the Spanish 
War; boasts that he has not missed a 
vote in fifteen years; in his humble way 
did valiant service in his political club 
against the ‘“‘ boss” of New York during 
the last campaign. And yet he declares 
that we have no meats or vegetables 
with ‘the flavor or substance ” of those 
in the old country; reproaches us 
severely for having “‘no place which is 
such a pleasure to see as Naples,” and 
swears by ‘‘Torqua-ato Ta-ass” as the 
greatest of poets, though he only knows 
four lines of the Gerusalemme. Side 
by side over the fireplace in his living- 


room are two unframed pictures tacked 


to the wall. Little paper flags of the 
two countries are crossed over each. 
One is a chromo of Garibaldi in his red 
shirt. The other is a newspaper supple- 
ment portrait of Lincoln. 

A man like Giovanni Aloi, yearning 
for the home of his youth, sometimes 
goes back to Italy, but he soon returns. 
Unconsciously, in his very inmost being, 


pS 


| } ttt CHIMLIVG TOLLE eh ALLAIN 431 


he has become an American, and the Their race unites to the strength of ours. 
prophecy of Bayard Taylor’s great ode For many thousands of them their Italy 
is fulfilled. Their tongue melts in ours. now lies by the western brine. 





THE “SPAZZINO” 


(o>) 


The Liberal Immigration League 


AIMS 


To promote the welfare of immigrants, while at the same time 
serving the best interests of this country. 


To endeavor to diminish the congestion 1n large cities by aiding 
the unemployed to go to small towns and farming districts and differ- 
ent parts of the country where their services will be most useful. 


To deflect the current of immigration to parts of the United 
States where the demand for labor is large, and untilled land is avail- 
able, by bringing together intending immigrants in their own countries 
into groups expressly destined for and proceeding to such localities, 
thus placing them outside the congested regions and establishing them 
in contented villages where their Americanism will be fostered and 


their welfare assured ; in other words, helping the immigrants to form. 


in assigned quarters, such permanent settlements as will benefit both 
themselves and the country. 


To promote, when necessary, the enactment of such legislation 
as will make this direction of immigration more effective. 


To oppose any unjust and un-American restriction of immigration. 


To advocate high principles that should be embodied in our 


National laws dealing with the subject of immigration. 


To educate newcomers to this country, and fit them to become 
intelligent, loyal and law-abiding American citizens. 


To distribute literature and employ other means to circulate 
generally the facts concerning immigration. 


To establish branches in all the principal cities of the United 
States for the above purposes. 


Membership in this organization can be obtained by any citizen 
_ of good character who is in sympathy with the objects, and who will 
pay the regular dues, $1.00 a year. 


LIBERAL IMMIGRATION LEAGUE 
P.O. Box 1261, New York City 


‘fink 


An Appeal to the Public 


7 HERE has lately been made a great effort on the part 

of a number of organizations throughout the country, 
to restrict, if not entirely suppress, immigration. Seventy- 
two of these organizations have petitioned the late Congress 
to that end. 

_ This has been done in spite of the fact that there is a 
large and increasing demand for labor in the whole country, 
and especially in the West and South. 

There is really no occasion whatever for the enactment ° 
of any additional restrictive immigration laws. The existing 
law is restrictive enough. It prohibits the landing of crimi- 
nals, dependents, habitual paupers, women of bad character, 
persons afflicted with contagious or incurable diseases, and 
other undesirable classes of immigrants. It seems that if any 
legislation were needed it would be a modification of the 
existing laws, rather than an amplification. 

The law should be so amended as to give the right of 
appeal to the courts from the decision of officials who may be 
prejudiced. 

The proposed increase of the head-tax at a time when 
the surplus revenue derived from this source exceeds the ex- 
penditure by large amounts is ridiculous. The poor steerage 
passenger ought to be relieved from paying any head-tax 
whatever. 

The educational qualifications, while appropriate as a 


prerequisite to citizenship, are useless as far as residence is 
concerned. 


Immigrants arriving after all the hardships of a journey 


and the vexations of a steerage passage can hardly be expected 


to give evidence of great vitality. The “low vitality”’ clause 
in the bill as amended appears to be more dangerous than 
any other scheme that has yet been suggested. Under it 
nearly every immigrant coming in the steerage could be 


reasonably decided to be of “low vitality or poor physique.” 


The Liberal Immigration League intends to send dele- 


gates throughout the country, and to distribute literature so 
as to educate the people, and appeal to men in public office, 
in order that when the bill again makes its appearance in 
Congress, as no doubt it will, we may all be in a position to 
oppose it. 

In the belief that you are in sympathy with our aim, 
this letter is written to you to ask you to join our League. 


Please send your name and address to the above address. 


Yours very truly, 


cuwach Ausfibecd / 


President 


Cia 


Anyone contemplating becoming a member of the League, 
should fill out and detach the slip below and send the same, together 


with his dues, to the following address : 





LIBERAL IMMIGRATION LEAGUE 


150 Nassau Street, New York, N.Y. 
Post Office Box 1261 


I desire to become a member of the LIBERAL IMMIGRATION 
LEAGUE and enclose herewith my dues ($7.00) for the year ending 


Donations are welcome. 


Receipt for amount remitted will be forwarded by the Treasurer, 


ANTONIO ZUCCA, 


Pres. Italian Chamber of Commerce. 


NO CANVASSERS ARE EMPLOYED BY THE LEAGUE 








